This is the week that was: When social media put its brakes on

As the Christmas lights are turned on in Oxford street we look back at another eventful week. Italy joined Greece on the teetering edge of economic meltdown and Berlusconi finally agreed to give up his part-time job running the country. Meanwhile media mogul James Murdoch was put in the pressure cooker once again and accused of being a mafia boss by a very brave Tom Watson. Back in the world of business Adobe finally waved the white flag to HTML5 and took the decision to pull the plug on using Flash on mobile devices.

Here at Earnest we have been busy at work, with some big pitches, global campaigns and your usual content gathering to share herewith.

Social brand good news of the week:

When Google launched its brand new social network Google + earlier this year, hopes were high that it could take on Facebook and become the new online hangout. After the initial excitement and flurry of users to sign up, ‘plus’ has hardly set the digital world on fire. This week, however, Google has opened up brand pages for businesses, making it clear they will not charge for the service. With the majority of brands having a Facebook presence today, will this announcement mean more businesses are hoping their customers will push the + button instead of the ‘like’ button? Or is it simply yet another social network to embrace and manage? Luckily Marketo has already compiled the top 5 things you need to know about Google +.

Customer influence insight of the week:

For organisations across the globe the rise of social media has meant that their brands can be talked about and shared by people that the traditional outbound marketing tactics would not have reached. But there has always been a negative side to brands being free to wander, unchecked across the blog- and twittersphere. The big issue though is when a customer feels negatively towards you they are free to let the world know (so long as they can find it online). MIT Sloan looked at what influences customers' comments online, giving the top 4 lessons for managers listening to social media and top 4 lessons for social media strategists. Just remember – be prepared to act, don’t be afraid of disagreements and don’t over react to negative comments.

Research paper of the week:

With budgets being cut and organisations wanting more from their marketing departments, the pressure is really on for B2B marketers to win over the businesses buyers of this world. This week Marketo released its B2B benchmark report – examining the top challenges for B2B marketers as well as the best practices to overcome them… a lot of text to get through but well worth it.

Augmented reality app of the week:

Here at Earnest we have been banging on about Augmented Reality for a long time now. Over a year ago we looked at how Augmented Reality may have an impact on the world of B2B marketing, and more recently we have seen some really nice examples of it being used in the mainstream by the likes of Tesco and VW. This week however, we were particularly impressed by Blippar’s showcase – using object recognition to enable augmented reality. The voting on Marmite is a particular favourite of ours.

Social media slowdown of the week:

Just when everyone was getting used to social media and integrating it into all of their campaigns, the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts comes along and ruins the fun. Its research shows that social media use by the largest companies in the world has stalled, or perhaps is even re-trenching, evidenced by the sheer number of Fortune 500 companies who look like they've lost interest in all matters social. Is this because customers and consumers don’t want it, or the big cos still simply don’t get it?

Infographic of the week:

With so many different channels and marketing programs available today, keeping on top of which ones are working and which are not is a tough task. This infographic shows where money is best spent and where you are literally flushing money down the drain.

So another week gone by, another week closer to Christmas. That was the week that was, we hope you had a good one.